Stay-lace

The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace—like a summer-house.

She opened the drawing-room door in trepidation. Would she find Esther drowned with her head in the goldfish bowl, or hanged from the chandelier by her stay-lace ?